So my ACTUAL feelings about this book are "it was okay I guess," but it was advertised to me as soothing explanations of nature things, and I am happy to report, all of this is true!

That being said: Auel explains in her notes that she spent an immense amount of time doing research for this, and I'm sure that's true, but the repeated assertion that Neanderthals were intensely patriarchal just feels very uncreative to me. Like I don't know anything about the research she did, but I don't think the Neanderthals had any idea of gender--and it would be more interesting that they did.

I also wasn't warned there were rape sequences in this book, so I want to make sure I say they exist. It felt very "what the fuck why is this in this book" (like what in her research made her go "hm I guess rape exists in this universe"--although maybe she was like "hm since they're Very Patriarchal that seems like a thing.") I guess what bothers me about these things is they don't come off as creative or interesting choices, and it posits humanity as this group that is like "better" because they're presumably less patriarchal and like not quite ma'am!

BUT, as I said: the descriptions of herb-gathering and hide-preparation was all very soothing, so if you're down with that and can ignore the weird gender stuff going on in this book, it may be really interesting to you!